-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- `` The sequester is coming , the sequester is coming , '' cries Chicken Little , speaking of the across-the-board spending reductions set to kick in next Friday . As a result , much of the Washington establishment , politicians of both parties , and the media are bracing for the apocalypse .

Henny Penny worries about poisoned meat going uninspected , the air traffic control system shutting down , and schools being forced to close . Meanwhile Turkey Lurkey is afraid that national security is threatened because our military will be gutted . And Foxy Loxy is concerned there will be massive job losses and our economy will crash .

The reality , though , is that most of what we are being told about the sequester is just a fairy tale . Here 's why :

The sequester imposes savage spending cuts

Actually , the sequester does n't cut federal spending at all , or rather it cuts it only in the Washington sense of any reduction from projected baseline increases is a cut . In reality , even if the sequester goes through , the federal government will spend more every single year . In fact , in 2023 it will be spending $ 2.39 trillion more than it does today .

OK , but at least the reductions in projected spending are big , right ?

Hardly . This year , the sequester would slow the growth in federal spending by just $ 85 billion , from an expected , pre-sequester budget of $ 3.64 trillion -- less than a 2.3 % reduction . To put that in perspective , the federal government borrows $ 85 billion every 28 days . In fact , this actually overstates the size of this year 's cuts . Because of ongoing contracts and the Byzantine labyrinth of federal budgeting , only $ 44 billion of that $ 85 billion will actually be cut from this year 's budget . The rest will be cut in future years , but attributed to this year 's budget . So , the real reduction in federal spending this year is just 1.2 % . If the federal government ca n't reduce spending by less than a penny-and-a-half on the dollar without throwing us into the dark ages , something is truly wrong .

But are n't the cuts larger for domestic discretionary spending ?

It is true that the cuts are not spread equally across all types of federal spending . Entitlement programs , such as Medicare , Medicaid and Social Security are generally exempt -- Grandma 's Social Security check wo n't be cut -- meaning that discretionary spending takes a disproportionately larger hit . Still , we are talking about a reduction of less than 9 % . That would leave domestic discretionary spending , after adjusting for inflation , at roughly the same level as 2009 . You recall 2009 , do n't you ? The starvation , the mass closure of our schools , the shutdown of the transportation system , the burning cities ?

What about defense ? Surely , the sequester guts defense

Defense does take the biggest cut under sequester , nearly 13 % of planned spending . In fact , defense spending would really be cut , in the sense of actually spending less , over the next two years . Still , it would never fall below the level of spending we had as recently as 2007 , a year we managed to survive without al Qaeda wading ashore in Long Beach . Beginning in 2015 , defense spending would start rising again , in real terms , and would exceed current levels by 2019 . Keeping all this in perspective , over the entire 10-year period covered by the sequester , defense spending would average roughly $ 100 billion more each year -LRB- after adjusting for inflation -RRB- than we spent at the height of the cold war .

I 'm still worried about the impact on the economy . Some economists believe that the sequester will cost thousands of jobs and throw us into another recession . True or not ?

The proposed spending reductions amount to less than 0.03 % of our gross domestic product . If our economy ca n't survive spending cuts of that size , we truly are Greece . Of course , in the short term , there will be some layoffs and furloughs . This will be hard on some communities that depend heavily on government spending , and even harder on those workers directly affected . However , most of the numbers cited about the numbers of jobs at risk come from industry groups with a vested interest in making the cuts look as bad as possible .

This entire argument buys into the Keynesian conceit that government spending creates jobs over the long term . But the resources necessary to create those jobs have to be extracted from the private economy either through taxes or borrowing . That means the private sector then has fewer resources to invest in job creation . Given that the private sector generally puts those resources to a more productive use , it is likely that government spending destroys more jobs over the long run than it creates .

We can and should have a legitimate debate about the best way to cut spending . But let 's not be distracted by fairy tales about how the sky is falling .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael D. Tanner .

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Michael Tanner : Most of what we are told about the sequester is just a fairy tale

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Tanner : Some think the sequester imposes savage spending cuts , but that 's not true

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He says although defense spending will be cut , it would never fall below 2007 level

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Tanner : Government spending may destroy more jobs in the long run than it creates